Hope Davis, left, and Robert Sean Leonard in “Dead End” at Williamstown Theatre Festival in 1997. Leonard is returning to the festival this summer in “Pygmalion.” (Photo by Richard Feldman

By ­Laura Collins-Hughes
Globe Staff
February 26, 2013

The world premiere of Jason Robert Brown and Marsha Norman’s musical “The Bridges of Madison County,” a “Pygmalion” revival starring Robert Sean Leonard, and a production of Tom Stoppard’s “Hapgood” starring Kate Burton will take the stage this summer at Williamstown Theatre Festival, part of the 2013 season lineup unveiled Monday.

No casting has been announced for “The Bridges of Madison County,” based on the 1992 best-selling novel that spawned the Clint Eastwood-Meryl Streep movie. But it will be directed by Bartlett Sher, who won a Tony Award for “South Pacific.” Kelli O’Hara, a star of that production as well as “The Light in the Piazza,” also directed by Sher, has been involved in the musical’s development. O’Hara was at Williamstown last summer in “Far From Heaven.”

The season will kick off with Henry Wishcamper’s adaptation of the musical “Animal Crackers,” June 26-July 14 on the main stage, and the world premiere of Bess Wohl’s “American Hero,” directed by Leigh Silverman (“Chinglish”), June 26-July 7 on the smaller Nikos Stage. “Hapgood,” directed by Evan Yionoulis, will run July 10-21 on the Nikos Stage, and Nicholas Martin’s production of “Pygmalion” will run July 17-27 on the main stage. “Johnny Baseball,” the Red Sox musical that was a hit when it premiered at the American Repertory Theater in 2010 — and which has lyrics by Willie Reale, the husband of Williams­town artistic director Jenny Gersten — will run July 24-Aug. 4 on the Nikos Stage in a production directed by Marc Bruni.

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With music and lyrics by Brown, a Tony winner for “Parade,” and a book by Norman, who won a Tony for the musical “The Secret Garden” and a Pulitzer Prize for “'night, Mother,” “The Bridges of Madison County” will wrap up the main stage season Aug. 1-18. A fourth Nikos Stage production, scheduled to run Aug. 7-18, is to be announced.